Scheduling Software for In-Home Music Teachers
Your standing weekly students are already on your calendar. It is everything around them — the enquiry that arrives mid-lesson, the trial that never shows, the make-up nobody can find a time for — that eats the evening. Cartoply takes that off your phone.
The teaching is the easy part
A travelling music teacher’s week has a stable core and a chaotic edge. The core is your regulars: the same students, the same evenings, arranged directly with the family and rarely renegotiated. The edge is everything else — the parent who found you on a school Facebook group and wants to know if you teach cello, the family asking to move Thursday because of a swim meet, the new enquiry that needs a trial lesson before anyone commits. All of it arrives by text, while both your hands are on an instrument.
The cost is not just the interruption. Music teaching is a first-reply business: a parent messaging three teachers books the one who answers, and if you reply at nine that night you have already lost. Meanwhile the trial lessons that do get booked are the least reliable appointments you take. Nobody has paid anything, the family is still deciding, and you have driven across town on the strength of a text message.
Then there is the geography, which nobody warns you about when you start. A thirty-minute lesson forty minutes away is not a thirty-minute lesson — it is a two-hour commitment for one lesson fee. The bookings that quietly ruin a schedule are the ones you accepted before thinking about the drive.
What Cartoply does for a travelling music teacher
Trial lessons paid at booking
Attach a price to your trial or intro lesson and connect Stripe or PayPal. Payment is authorised before the slot confirms and captured only once it is secured, so nobody is charged for a booking that did not go through. A paid trial is a different appointment from a free one: the family has decided, they are home, and the lesson starts on time. Taking payment means running Cartoply as an organisation of one — see the FAQ below.
A travel radius that holds
Set the area you are genuinely willing to drive — a radius around home, a set of ZIP codes, or a shape you draw around the two school catchments you already serve. A family outside it does not see open slots, so you never have the awkward conversation after the lesson is already on your calendar. Because bookings cluster inside that area, an evening tends to sit in one part of town rather than criss-crossing it.
The questions you always end up asking anyway
Add up to ten intake questions per lesson type: instrument, student age, how long they have played, current method book or grade, whether there is a suitable instrument at the house, whether a parent will be present, and access notes. The answers arrive with the booking, so you turn up knowing whether this is a first-year beginner on a rented half-size violin or a grade-six student preparing for an exam.
Lesson lengths and travel time that are honest
Thirty, forty-five and sixty-minute lessons each get their own type, price and duration. Set a buffer after each one for packing up and driving, and Cartoply enforces it in both directions — the next slot a family can see already accounts for you getting there. Minimum notice stops a booking landing while you are in the car, and a per-day cap stops a Saturday from becoming eight lessons.
Make-up lessons without the thread
Every confirmation email carries a reschedule link with a cancellation cutoff you choose. A family that needs to move a lesson picks from the times you actually have free, instead of opening a six-message negotiation while you are teaching someone else. Inside the cutoff they are asked to contact you directly, so a last-minute change still gets a human decision.
One calendar, no collisions
Connect Google Calendar or Outlook and Cartoply reads it live. Your standing students, your own rehearsals, the school run — anything already on that calendar blocks the slot. Families only ever see times that are genuinely free, and a slot taken is taken even if two parents are looking at it at once.
How teachers actually use it
Independent teachers
Your regulars stay where they are — arranged with the family, sitting in your calendar. Cartoply takes the part you cannot do while teaching: the enquiry, the paid trial, the make-up, the summer intensive. One link in your Facebook group post, your school noticeboard listing and your email signature, and the first reply is instant even when you are mid-lesson.
On the free plan you can publish one lesson type without paying anything. Charging for lessons requires an organisation of one, which is $7/month.
Teachers with a waiting list
When you are full, the booking page becomes a filter rather than a funnel. Publish only the trial or assessment lesson, cap how far ahead it books, and let the enquiries that are serious enough to pay come through while the rest self-select out. You stop spending evenings replying to families you have no space for.
Small teaching studios
If you have two or three teachers covering different instruments and different parts of town, an organisation lets each teacher hold their own availability and their own area, and routes each enquiry to whoever covers that address and teaches that instrument. Seats are $7 each per month.
See it set up for a teaching round
We will configure a paid trial lesson, your intake questions, and a travel radius around the areas you already teach — in 15 minutes.
Book a 15-minute demoHow to set up online booking for your teaching
Around thirty minutes, most of which is deciding what your trial lesson should cost and how far you are willing to drive.
- 1
Create your Cartoply account
Sign up free — no credit card required. Every new account gets 14 days with the paid features switched on.
- 2
Create an organisation with just you in it
Taking payment for a lesson requires an organisation, so make one and leave yourself as the only member. It is one seat at $7/month, and it is also what unlocks the travel radius.
- 3
Connect your calendar
Connect Google Calendar or Outlook so your existing students, rehearsals and family commitments block those times automatically.
- 4
Connect Stripe or PayPal
Finish the whole Stripe onboarding form in one sitting — an account that is half set up cannot take payments, and the failure only shows up when a parent tries to pay.
- 5
Draw your travel radius
Set a radius around your home, list the ZIP codes you serve, or draw the area around the schools you already teach at. Families outside it will not see open slots.
- 6
Create your lesson types
Trial or assessment lesson with a price, plus any one-off types you offer — make-up lesson, exam preparation, summer intensive. Give each its own length, price, and drive-time buffer.
- 7
Add your intake questions and publish
Instrument, age, level, instrument at home, parent present. Then put the link in your listings, your Facebook group posts and your email signature.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best scheduling software for a music teacher?
It depends what you need it to do. If you want a full studio management system — recurring lesson billing, attendance registers, practice logs, tuition invoicing and family accounts — that is what My Music Staff, Duet Partner, Opus1 and Fons are built for, and they will serve you better than Cartoply for that. Cartoply is the booking layer. It matters most if you travel to students and your problems are enquiry response time, unpaid trial lessons that no-show, and getting booked outside the area you are willing to drive. Some teachers run Cartoply purely as the front door for new enquiries and keep their existing studio software for everything after the student signs up.
Can students book a recurring weekly lesson slot?
No — and this is the honest limit of the product for teaching. Cartoply books one appointment at a time. There is no way for a family to book "every Tuesday at four" in a single action, and no series or repeat function. In practice most travelling teachers arrange the standing weekly slot directly with the family anyway, because it involves a conversation about term dates and fees. Cartoply handles the things around it: the first enquiry, the paid trial lesson, the make-up, the holiday intensive. If self-serve recurring booking is your main requirement, use a studio management platform instead.
Can I sell a block or term of lessons upfront?
Not as a package. Cartoply has no multi-session packages, prepaid credits, or student balances — a payment buys one appointment. What you can do is charge the full price of a single lesson at booking, which covers the trial, the one-off and the make-up. Teachers who sell a term upfront generally invoice for it separately and use Cartoply only for the enquiry and trial stage.
Why do I need an organisation if I teach on my own?
Because payments are attached to organisation booking pages, not personal ones. Create an organisation, leave yourself as the only member, and you get the price field on your lesson types, the ability to draw a travel radius, and no limit on how many lesson types you publish. It is one seat, so it costs $7 a month, and money goes straight to your own connected Stripe or PayPal account. The word "organisation" is unfortunate for a solo teacher — treat it as the setting that turns on the paid features.
How do I stop being booked for lessons too far away?
Set a travel radius and families outside it never see availability. You can define it as a distance around your home, a list of ZIP codes, or a shape you draw on a map — which is usually the most accurate, because the area a teacher will actually drive tends to follow school catchments and main roads rather than a neat circle. This is one of the features that requires the organisation setup described above.
What should I charge for a trial lesson?
That is your call, but the reason to charge something rather than nothing is worth knowing: a free trial books more appointments and produces fewer students, because it costs the family nothing to forget. Teachers commonly price a trial at the normal lesson rate, or a little below it, and some credit it against the first month if the student continues. What matters mechanically is that money changes hands before you drive there. You can change the price whenever you like, and refund in full from the dashboard if you decide not to take the student on.
Stop answering enquiries between students
Start free. No credit card required.
Set your trial lesson price, draw the area you will drive, and let families book the slots you actually have.
14-day free trial — no credit card required. $7/seat/month after that.